The West is obsessed with the rise of China, says curator Hans Ulrich Obrist. But where do the Chinese think they’re heading?

One might think Mr. Obrist, director of London’s Serpentine Gallery and a well-known art-world figure, has his own theories, but he says his job is to showcase artists, not himself. So he put the question to 115 artists, architects and academics and compiled their answers in his new book, “The Future Will Be...China.”

“When you live in the West, you hear those two words all the time: ‘Future’ and ‘China,’” he said. “This was a way for me as a curator to speculate about the future of art.”

Respondents included artists Ai Weiwei and Liu Wei, architect Frank Gehry, and astronomer Dimitar Sasselov. Their answers came in the form of poetry, drawings and photos. One artist, Huang Yong Ping, scribbled his thoughts on the back of a Days Inn postcard.

“The future is the part that is uncertain, unknown, and unpredictable to us,” Mr. Ai wrote. Another artist, Chu Yun, translated a Chinese army-recruitment banner: “HEY GOOD LOOKIN’! GOT A FUTURE? IF NOT, GO JOIN THE ARMY!”